No, It's Not Ted Collins

Silliness? Really bad puns? Parody? It was all wrapped up in one radio show that hopped about among various networks in radio’s Golden Age.

The show was “It Pays To Be Ignorant.”

It seems I write about this cockeyed quiz programme every two years. You have no doubt read posts from May 2013 and May 2015. So here’s another one.

My big lament is that most of the versions of the show circulating on the internet have poor audio quality or are AFRS copies that don’t have network IDs and commercials. And it’s not a show I’d recommend for binge listening (which, to be honest, I don’t recommend to begin with). But it’s fun to groan along with, and it’s enjoyable to find a show that doesn’t take itself seriously. Neither did the sponsor, at least in the days on Mutual. The show was picked up in 1942 by Piel’s Beer. Broadcasting magazine revealed “Ignorant”...

...is being promoted by Piel salesmen this month, who are making their calls wearing large paper dunce caps. In the spirit of the show also, the brewing company's commercials are based on the "apologetic theme", stating that the program "is the best the company could find" and Piel's "hopes its listeners won't be offended", etc. Agency in charge is Sherman K. Ellis & Co., New York.

Here’s an article about it from Radio Life magazine of February 15, 1944. There are brief biographies of the panel and host as well. Oddly, the show was on two networks at the time, but it left Mutual for Columbia at the end of the month, replaced with the Army Air Forces Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Harry Bluestone, and taking the place of “The Philip Morris Playhouse” on CBS.

It Pays To Be Ignorant
By Shirley Gordon
Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Mutual-KHJ
WHO SAYS there's nothing new under the sun?
If you are one of that growing group of radio dialers who is beginning to be worn ragged by the endless barrage of quiz programs that prove to be poor imitations of "Information Please," you will find just what you're looking for in "It Pays to Be Ignorant," the new half-hour comedy show heard each Tuesday night on KHJ, and also being featured indefinitely as a part of CBS' popular Friday night "Kate Smith Hour." It's a quiz show to end all quiz shows.
Burlesquing the usual programs of this type, the cast of this new laugh spot includes interlocutor Tom Howard and a trio of judges, George Shelton, Lulu McConnell and Harry McNaughton. Their routine runs very much as follows:
Curtain opens on board of experts in the midst of deep intellectual discussion:
1st Expert: "What d'ya think he did—he tried to pass off a lead half-dollar on me!"
2nd Expert: "The dirty crook!"
3rd Expert: "What did you do with it?"
1st Expert: "I bought this tie."
This week's literary offering from these noted educators:
"Little Bo Peep
Has lost her sheep
And don't know where to find them . . .
Leave them alone
And they'll come home.
. . . Lamb chops!"

Dean of Misinformation, Mr. Tom Howard, submits the question of the evening to the board:
"What great president was the city of Washington, D. C. named after?"
The board of experts, with furrowed brows and drumming fingers, sinks into deep concentration of thought.
"No help from the audience, please!" Mr. Howard exclaims hastily with a warning gesture. "Now, let's all concentrate," he urges his experts.
The experts look dubiously at one another.
"Would you kindly repeat the question, please?" they finally request of Mr. Howard.
Mr. Howard obliges.
The board remains puzzled.
D. C. or T. C?
"Did you say D. C. or T. C.?" they question.
"Could it be Ted Collins?" one suggests, Mr. Collins being a prominent figure on the Kate Smith show.
"He wasn't president during my time," a co-expert points out.
"Why did you put that D. C. in the question?" another expert asks of their interlocutor. "You're trying to confuse us!"
"D. C. stands for District of Columbia," Mr. Howard patiently explains.
"Oh, then it's something about Christopher Columbus!" exclaims one enlightened expert in delight.
"Why wasn't he president?" asks another.
"He must have been a Republican," opines the third.
The board once again emerges into the deepness of thought. There is a period of suspenseful silence; then one of the esteemed experts clears his throat to speak.
"What was the question again, please?" he asks.
"Why was Columbus made president?
As one can readily see, "It Pays To Be Ignorant" is a reverse of the orthodox procedure on question -and-answer shows. The judges are as much baffled as the audience, as they try not only to answer the puzzlers but also to find out what the questions were in the first place.
Such profound inquiries as "What great American general lies buried in Grant's Tomb?" and "What radio singer with initials K. S. has a theme song called 'When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain'?" are gravely pondered by the learned foursome.
The questions they will or will not answer, depending on their mood of the evening, are submitted in writing from the audience instead of in person, as previously done on their own show.
When interlocutor Howard asks "What comes over the mountain?", the answer he gets is "Hillbillies!" When Howard persists, and patiently hints, "What comes over the mountain at night?", the reply comes readily: "Drunken hillbillies!"
All four members of the cast of "It Pays To Be Ignorant" are veteran performers. Tom Howard, born in County Tyrone, Ireland, has a theatrical career that goes back to 1905 when he decided that vaudeville acting was nice easy work paying fine dividends. He started at the Dreamland Theater in Philadelphia for the munificent salary of $15 a week, playing a dozen performances a day. That led to other engagements which finally brought him to Broadway in the "Ziegfeld Follies," Joe Cook's "Rain or Shine," "Greenwich Village Follies" and "Keep Moving."
Then Howard found a partner in George Shelton, to form the team of Howard & Shelton, a standard vaudeville act for many years. The team also made a number of motion picture shorts, some 55 in all, which brought them nationwide attention and fame. With the advent of radio, the team went on the air, appearing on many programs for the past decade.
Shelton, born in New York, started his career with a tent show in Iowa. He had worked out an act featuring a Dutch accent, but soon learned he had to broaden his repertoire by reason of doing a different act each night. Turning to blackface with a Southern drawl he encountered difficulties, for the Dixie drawl came out with that same old Dutch dialect.
From the tent show Shelton went on tour with a repertory company for five years, and then saw service in World War I. After the war, he toured Germany with a show, then returned to America for vaudeville dates. He replaced Bobby Clark in an act called "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and after that ran into Tom Howard and decided to team up.
The other two expert "ignoramuses" have had equally long careers in the theater. Lulu McConnell, the only woman in the show, has been on the stage in one capacity or another since she was four years old. Born in Kansas City, she was an established musical comedy star by the time she was sixteen, and has been featured in a number of successful Broadway shows, both in stock and in musicals. She takes some pride in having discovered Jack Oakie. Celebrities she appeared with included Eddie Cantor, George Jessell, Lillian Russell, Anna Held, and Willie and Eugene Howard. She says she likes answering the questions put to her on "It Pays To Be Ignorant" because it gives her a chance to use some of the same old jokes she has been using for years. "And," say Lulu, "they still get laughs!"
Harry McNaughton, best known to radio audiences for his seven-year run as Phil Baker's English butler, "Bottle," is the only member of the "Ignorant" cast bearing the distinction of having been a prisoner of war. In World War I he was captured by the Germans and so badly beaten he still bears facial scars.
Currently celebrating his 25th anniversary in show business, McNaughton comes of a long line of English theatrical artists. His father was lessee and manager of the Adelphi Theater in London, and his uncles were music hall favorites for many years. His Broadway career includes appearances in more than 30 productions.
In 1929 he was making a film at the Pathe Studios in New York when fire broke out. McNaughton jumped out of a window with a helpless chorus girl in his arms, both of them escaping with minor injuries although several people were burned to death in the blaze. The chorus girl, now a distinguished actress, was Constance Cummings.
And in case you still want to know who's buried in Grant's Tomb, ask them and they'll doubtless reply, "We don't know; we don't go to funerals."

Fleischer Suburbia

Wonky or worn-out cityscapes highlighted many a cartoon from the Fleischer studio in the early 1930s. By the end of the decade, the Fleischer shorts were being set in cleaner suburbs with lawns and so on, perhaps reflective of New Yorkers leaving the dirt of the city for little homes on the outskirts.

Here are some of the suburban backgrounds in The Hot Air Salesman (1937), featuring the arm-swinging Wiffle Piffle.



The cartoon opens with a layered, 3D background. As usual, the artist isn’t credited.

By the way, is it my imagination, or did Fleischer cartoons eventually start ending with a lot of destruction?

Tom Thumb in Trouble

Chuck Jones wanted to make Disney-like cartoons with little or helpless characters, cartoons that made you want to go “Awww.” His boss Leon Schlesinger wanted to make funny cartoons, and apparently told Jones to make them. Is it any wonder that Jones spent years castigating Schlesinger as a know-nothing boob?

Tom Thumb in Trouble (1940) is about as Disney as Jones could get within the confines of Schlesinger’s budget. There’s a chirpy Disney-like song, there’s pathos, there’s a teeny character overcoming the odds and there’s a happy ending. And because Jones in an Artist, there are some interesting camera angles and layouts.

There’s a scene where Tom Thumb is splashing around in a soapy water-filled dish that he can’t escape. Whether Jones had Ace Gamer or another effects animator working on it, I don’t know, but there’s an awful lot going in each frame with water drops. Some examples:



Tom is splashing around to “Agitation” by Mendelssohn.

Tom’s voice is supplied by Marjorie Tarlton, says the internet, but I can’t find a thing about her in any trade publication, the Los Angeles Times or even the U.S. Census.

Mad, Mad Jack

Stanley Kramer shoehorned as many comedians as he possibly could in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). One of them, appearing for roughly 15 seconds, was Jack Benny in a pretty good looking antique car.

An expert on this film, I’m not. And one of the things I didn’t know was that Jack Benny was supposed to have been the lead. Instead, the part went to Spencer Tracy, who I think was a far better choice.

Jack’s movie career pretty much ended with The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), an odd film that Benny continually ridiculed thereafter on his radio show. But there was a time when he was starring for several movie studios simultaneously (in an era of contract players) and his comedic films got good reviews and attracted big audiences.

Here are a couple of United Press International columns where Jack refers to the lead in Mad, etc. First up is a piece from 1962.

Jack Benny, Recovered From 'Horn,' Coming Back
By JAMES BACON
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 2, (UPI) — Jack Benny, blamed by many for the present disastrous state of movies, is returning to the scene of his crimes to appear in a new picture.
It is not uncommon in this community to date the decline of films back to "The Horn Blows at Midnight," which Benny petulantly admits was something less than a classic.
"But they forget my hits," he protests.
Jack, who is either the oldest 39-year-old in the world or the youngest 67, was propped up in bed in his luxurious Beverly Hills home. The comedian wasn't sick. He just enjoys lying in bed when he isn't working--which is most of the time.
Jack admits he is enthusiastic about returning to the silver screen, but undoubtedly would be ecstatic if it were the golden screen.
Benny's first flicker appearance since "The Born Blows at Midnight" in 1946, will be in Mervyn Leroy's "Gypsy." He describes his role as a "cameo" part as differentiated from a walk-on.
"It's the kind of thing you do for a friend like Mervyn," Jack said. "I play scenes from the old days of the Palace Theater in New York. I think the part will be kinda cute."
It was suggested Jack's track record in movies might cause a whammy on Leroy's picture and bring their friendship to a screaming halt.
"My record isn't that bad," Jack sniffed indignantly.
"People forget I made 20 pictures, none of which lost money. If you'll remember, I did do such things as 'Buck Benny Rides Again,' 'George Washington Slept Here,' 'Artists and Models' and 'Charlie's Aunt.' They were all very successful."
Somewhat mollified by his own defense, the CBS- TV star went further.
"Stanley Kramer wanted me to do his big new comedy, 'Mad, Mad, Mad World,' but I couldn't accept. It was a big part and would have taken up too much of my time.
"There was a lot of money in it, too," Jack said thoughtfully, almost as if this consideration could change his mind.
"No, no. I just can't do it. It would be impossible to take six or eight weeks away from my television show."
Modest to a fault, the violinist said his appearance in "Gypsy" does not signal a full fledged movie comeback, although the industry could well be grateful for such a shot in the arm.
"Television is taking up all my time now," he explained, "just as radio did a few years ago. I gave up pictures because it was impossible for a comedian to find good directors in those days. Now that there are many fine ones around I haven't time." Benny pulled the blankets up around his chin and smiled. "I'm playing myself in the Leroy picture--as I was back in vaudeville days," he said. "They will probably want me to wear a toupee, but I'm really not sure that I need it."

This story is from 1963.

Benny 'almost' makes a film
By JOSEPH FINNIGAN
HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 5 (UPI)—Jack Benny came perilously close to making a motion picture comeback recently, which would have filled the need for a violin-playing comedian, assuming there is such a void.
As a performer, Benny's popularity was first attained on radio, nurtured by a movie career which now appears in the dim past and cemented in television where he ranks with the best.
Benny almost returned to feature films recently in the muiti - million dollar comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." He was supposed to play the police inspector's role which finally went to Spencer Tracy.
BETTER FOR TRACY
"I personally think the picture is better for Tracy," Benny said. "At the end of the picture he has the comedy scene and he's funny. It's sort of a pivot for the whole thing."
Benny's heavy television schedule ruled out the picture for him so the world must wait a little longer for Jack's comeback.
"If I ever found a real great picture I would do it," he said.
"If I could get a movie as good as 'To Be or Not to Be,' I would have to make it.
"I was in the picture with Carole Lombard. It was one of the best comedies ever made, that's what everybody says. I made it about 1941 and it's still being played in foreign countries. It looks better now."
FILMS MADE MONEY
Benny is one of the first in Hollywood to joke about his own movies, especially his somewhat less than epic picture, "The Horn Blows at Midnight." Apparently nobody heard the horn because the film has never been considered an industry classic. But Benny made other films, some of which earned money.
"Nearly all of my pictures made money," Benny said.
"Out of 20 pictures I made, about 15 of them were good ones. Some that looked good then might not look so good now, though."
BROADWAY SHOW
Benny has only four more CBS-TV shows to complete for the 1962-63 season, then it's off to New York for a Broadway show, his first in more than 30 years.
"I'm going to do two weeks in Toronto and then the Ziegfeld Theater in New York," the comedian said. "It'll be called 'Jack Benny on Broadway' and will be like a very intimate review, two acts."
Benny will unlimber his fiddle for the New York appearance.
"But not like I do in concerts," said Jack, a note of self-satisfaction in his reference to the classics.

Jack had one more “mad” experience. He was one of the co-stars in the animated TV special Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970). Had he still been on radio, he would have been making jokes about that one, too.

Crusader Rabbit: Waiting For the Whimsy

For many critics in the late 1950s, brand-new cartoons for TV were a welcome relief from what they saw as tired old theatrical cartoons that were rerun constantly. You know, like Bugs Bunny and Popeye, the ones that kids never got tired of seeing. The Huckleberry Hound Show was pretty much universally praised when the paint was still wet on the cels; critics had good things to say immediately after the show debuted in September 1958.

But before Huck came Crusader Rabbit. There were actually two Crusader Rabbits. One was the original black-and-white series produced by Jay Ward and Alex Anderson that first appeared on August 1, 1950 on KNBH in Los Angeles. Then there was the second version in colour produced by TV Spots. When it began airing is something to research; Regis Films wasn’t formed to distribute the cartoons until early February 1958, even though TV Spots head Shull Bonsall was promoting the series the previous October with an “America’s Most Beautiful Rabbit” search contest (ostensibly to find a model for a character which, in reality, had already been designed). Eight stations had signed up by the end of April to run the series. KMBC Kansas City was airing them on “Whizzo’s Cartoon Parade” by early July, and production wrapped up in May 1959 with the completion of the 260th cartoon.

Crusader made his first appearance on Los Angeles TV on April 6, 1959. Huckleberry Hound had been on the air for a little over six months, with the Times praising it for appealing to children and adults. But the same paper didn’t have good things to say about Crusader. Here’s the Times review of May 10th.

To sum up, many of the early TV cartoons had stuff for kids and stuff the kids likely wouldn’t get. Rocky and Bullwinkle was full of that kind of thing. One of my favourite puns on the Rocky show was a mountain called Horace Heights. As I kid, I never would have gotten it (Horace Heidt was a bandleader who had hosted an amateur show on network radio). Today, I think it’s pretty clever. But as a kid, I would have appreciated the silly name. So even if a kid doesn’t get the actual joke, they get something on some level. I think the reviewer misses that point in her column.

Bunny’s Funnies Leave Mummies
Bunny’s Funnies Choke Adults, Paralyze Tots
BY BARBARA COX
“Should Auld Acquaintance Be For Cotton.”
So help me, that’s what it says. Right here over the synopsis of Episode 124 (WILL Crusader Rabbit realize that Ill Regard Beauregard is none other than Dudley Nightshade in disguise? Tune in Channel 4 any weekday at 4:45 p.m., kiddies, and you might find out. Our try the full-length color feature starting at noon every Saturday.)

“Kiddies,” I said. Ha! Crusader Rabbit, that animated showcase for the most outrageous puns this side of Bennett Cerf, isn’t getting any laughs out of the children. They take the whole thing for real—deadpan and paralyzed.
She’s Pinned
It’s the adults who choke on such nifties as the shipwreck on “Nothing Atoll,” subtitled “Two on the Isle.” (Next episode: “Bah, Wilderness.”) OK, then, “Hominy Grits Can YOU Eat?” Out on “The Missing Links,” that is—and they do mean a golf course.
Brother. If I weren’t so fond of the assistant here, Ragland T. Tiger, I’d take off this Crusader Rabbit pin those characters down at the studio sent me. I’m only wearing it out of gratitude they’ve supplied for my husband’s boat: “The Whole Sinking Mess.”
The chip on my shoulder is not here because I think Crusader over-crowds the cartoon animal set. He was one of the first and best to hit TV, holding on for seven years—and if I got tired of the reruns, the children didn’t (There are 260 chapters in the new series—blessedly a long time before reruns.)
Puns Don’t Do It
Nor is it the puns (I love them) nor the money I had to pay my 8-year-old to watch the show so I could judge her reaction (the younger two came willingly) nor the schoolteachers who formed a fan club (the official salute: rabbit ears and a twitching nose).
My objection is to the wordiness between cartoons, the over-obvious pitch for adult viewers. There does exist an enchanted middle ground of the ridiculous where children and adults may sometimes meet as equals. But please, let me drift in, nose twitching, on some subtle, magical bit of whimsy—don’t shove.

I couldn’t tell you who wrote all of the TV Spots versions of Crusader, but two names on the credits are Chris Hayward and Barbara Chain. Hayward’s background should be well-enough known. He was one of the creative people behind Get Smart, one of the savviest TV shows of the 1960s, and worked on Rocky and other projects for Ward. Chain is less known. She began writing in radio on Stars Over Hollywood and then moved to television on The U.S. Steel Hour. Her main animation credit is on Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Years later, she supplied stories for Ruby-Spears’ Rambo. You’ll be waiting a long to see “some subtle, magical bit of whimsy” on that one.

Drunken Dancing Turtles

1930 was a great year for cartoons. At least, some of my favourites were made that year. The East Coast was humming along with the Fleischer, Van Beuren and Terry studios at work. I love Swing You Sinners from Fleischer, Chop Suey from Terry-Moser with the great roof chase at the end, and the fun Don and Waffles shorts Gypped in Egypt and The Haunted Ship produced by Van Beuren.

The Haunted Ship has some incredibly inconsistent animation, but it also has weird sea creatures, dancing and swaying for the sake of dancing and swaying, skeletons (what Van Beuren cartoon around then didn’t?) and, best of all, a turtle barbershop quartet.

Here they are pulling out of their shells and dancing to “Sweet Adeline,” adding some vocals at the end. (They open their mouths at the start but nothing comes out. Nothing like Van Beuren sloppiness). A cat bartender ends it all by casually smashing one of the turtles on the head with a bottle.



See some more frames in this earlier post.

John Foster and Manny Davis are credited with overseeing this cartoon, with Gene Rodemich providing a nice musical backdrop.

Sea Wolf

Anyone who is a real fan of old cartoons knows about the crazy reactions of the Wolf to Red in the cartoons Tex Avery made at MGM. Other studios tried the same kind of thing.

One of them was, of all places, Harman-Ising Productions, which picked up a contract to make one of the Snafu cartoons for military audiences. Seaman Tarfu in the Navy appeared on screens after the war (January 1946). It’s in the vein of Warners’ spot gag cartoons and even features Robert C. Bruce, who narrated most of them (Mel Blanc adds his voice as well).

At the beginning, a sailor gives a woman the eye and turns into a wolf. The reaction isn’t anywhere close to what Avery gave general audiences in the Red cartoons. It’s pretty blah.



The sailor now follows her (in cycle animation) as a running gag throughout the cartoon.



The cartoon is an odd mix of stylised character designs and the standard, rounded type you’d find in theatricals at that time (notice the change from sailor to wolf).

George Gordon, formerly of MGM, directed this cartoon. Soon he was on his way to John Sutherland Productions.

Shakespeare's Second Banana

Howard Morris was so over-the-top when working with Andy Griffith and Sid Caesar, it’s hard to think of him as anything but a comic actor. Ah, but that’s how television pigeon-holes you.

Howie spent World War Two in Maurice Evans’ special services unit in the South and Central Pacific, performing in Hamlet, along with another chap named Carl Reiner. Morris and Reiner, at least according to the Boston Globe of February 9, 1947, had worked together on WNYC before they were drafted, appeared together on stage in “Call Me Mister” in ‘47, then worked together with Caesar. Morris moved into television after getting plenty of exposure on stage at the Ziegfeld in New York in a 1949 production of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

(Morris had returned to radio in March 1946 in the debut cast of a Friday night show on Mutual called “Passport to Romance.” Romance doesn’t come to mind when you think of Howard Morris).

Sid Caesar’s shows truly showcased Morris’ comedic talents. Caesar left audiences uproariously laughing with his outrageous dialects—but Morris was even more outrageous. And one of the funniest things ever broadcast on TV, as far as I’m concerned, is the “This is Your Life” parody on Caesar’s Hour, with Morris as an almost uncontrollable Uncle Goopy.

If you appreciate Howard Morris, you may appreciate these newspaper articles from 1955. They were published during the run of Caesar’s Hour, which aired from 1954 to 1957, the year it won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series.

TV Star Achieves Note As ‘The Little One’
By JACK GAVER
United Press Staff Correspondent
NEW YORK, April 13 (UP) Television has brought street recognition of a sort to Howard Morris.
Those who spot him may not be able to lay tongue to his name immediately, but they don't need to.
“Oh, you're the little one,” they'll say.
And that's identification enough for themselves or for anyone else.
“The little one” can only be the one who isn't Sid Caesar or Carl Reiner, plus-six-footers both to Morris' five-six.
This member of the quartet that dominates "Caesar's Hour"—the fourth and distaff member is Nanette Fabray—is a legit dramatic actor turned comic who figures he has played in about 1500 sketches in six years on television.
"Just imagine that!" exclaimed the slight, serious-looking funny man.
“Why, if a stage comic had a career of 50 years, doing a new revue every year, he wouldn't appear in more than 250 sketches.”
Played Hamlet
Morris is one comedian who has no yearning to play Hamlet. He's done it. Well, not Hamlet exactly, but "Hamlet."
After New York schooling and a few seasons of acting apprenticeship with various groups, Morris spent four years in the Army during World War II. Three of those overseas in the Pacific with entertainment unit headed by the then Major Maurice Evans which, among other things, played a condensed version of the Shakespearian tragedy which was known as the "G.I. Hamlet." Morris was the Laertes. He was back in the role when a civilian version was presented on Broadway in 1946.
“I was a first sergeant in Evans unit,” Morris recalled, "and do you know who was one of my men? Carl Reiner."
Reiner has been with Caesar longer on an uninterrupted basis, but Morris was with him first.
From The First
“That was when Sid did his very first television work,” Morris explained. "When Max Liebman did the old "Admiral Revue" show for a season more than six years ago. I was around doing all sorts of bits for a while.
"Out of that came Max's ‘Your Show of Shows’ program for NBC, starring Sid and Imogene Coca, but by that time I had a role in the stage musical, ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ where I stayed for a couple of seasons.
"When I joined 'Your Show of Shows' in the fall of 1951, there was Carl again."
But for all the benefits, Morris considers three one-hour shows a month about all he or any other actor can take.
"When that fourth, idle week rolls around," he said, "I try to forget about television for seven days. I just stay home and relax. Or maybe 'collapse' is the better word."



This story is from the New York Herald Tribune December 25, 1955.

A BONANZA for “SECOND BANANAS”
IS IT inconceivable that an actor, with stardom at his fingertips, would reject it?
But such thespians do exist and Howard Morris may be counted among them.

Morris is the diminutive pixie who, together with sidekick Carl Reiner, helps Sid Caesar dispense comedy on NBC’s “Caesar’s Hour.” He is what is known in the trade as a “second banana” and Morris finds it a comfortable lot.
“It’s a real cushy spot,” says Morris, who avers that his decision is not a compromise. “With Caesar, I couldn’t find a better showcase, or a better opportunity to become versatile. The ultimate aim of any dedicated actor is to attain perfection and he can only achieve that by working constantly, playing as many different parts as possible within his capabilities.”
“You know,” he continued, “years ago it was easy to tell the difference between a top banana and his second banana, or straight man. The second banana would feed a straight line to the top banana, who’d advance to the footlights and hit the audience with a knock’em dead punch line.
“But times have changed since then, and a guy gets a lot more opportunity to show his talent. Oh, we’re still called second bananas, but now we’re a more important part of the bunch. Today, there [are] as many different types of second bananas as there are styles of comedy. Why, we second bananas today have as many funny lines and bits as the top comics.”
Second bananas today, Howard explains, may be insulting, pessimistic, cynical, language-fracturing toughies, or character men who can play anything from bulbous-nosed Prussian generals to waterfront hoodlums.
What’s more, they have become among the best-paid performers in television and have acquired almost as much of a following as the top bananas themselves. Viewers of the Caesar show are often moved to fits of laughter by Howard’s antics. He particularly falls into the category of the aforementioned character type, in that he is often called upon to play entitled noblemen, meek bank clerks, eccentric little music teachers, amatory Frenchmen, and the like.
Howard’s talent is unique in itself, combining a great sense of timing with an uncanny knack of facial expression and posturing. He can sway an audience into sympathy for the little man, squeeze every drop of humor out of a gag situation, yet subtly underscore a situation by merely letting the others take the fore. He can take up the slack when the line of funny business wears thin in spots. To Caesar, Howard’s a funnyman’s funnyman.
Hard to imagine this little guy was once a Shakespearean actor. His heart’s in television, though, much as he enjoyed doing the Bard.
He loves Shakespeare. But he loves Caesar more.

Coy Pitcher

“McGrip starts his wind-up, and here’s the throw,” announces the play-by-play man (John Wald) in Batty Baseball (1944). The pitcher shows off his coy side after tossing the ball.



Ray Abrams, Ed Love and Preston Blair are the credited animators in this Tex Avery cartoon for MGM.

Angry Adolf

Herr A. Hitler is so angry about a newspaper headline showing Daffy Duck's scrap pile has helped beat the Axis buddy Mussolini that he jumps on the newspaper and then starts chewing his carpet.



Art Davis gets the only animation credit in Frank Tashlin's stylish Scrap Happy Daffy. The music over the opening credits is "This Is Worth Fighting For" by De Lange and Stept.